


Was The Most You Ever Knew

by Daiako (Achrya)



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Star Trek Fusion, Biting, Canon-Typical Violence, Genderfluid, Half-Sibling Incest, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Pon Farr, Rough Sex, Semi-Public Sex, Sexual Content, Speciesism, mpreg mention if you squint
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-18
Updated: 2017-07-28
Packaged: 2018-12-03 16:47:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11536320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Achrya/pseuds/Daiako
Summary: Bilbo Baggins is only the second hobbit to leave his planet in well over three centuries and, after four years at Starfleet Academy, he very much intends to return to Bag End and continue his work from there. At least that’s the plan, until a meddling admiral somehow convinces him to go on an adventure.Captain Thorin Thrainson of the FRS Erebor, almost king of a dead planet and a near extinct people, cares for little except his people and the stars. He knows he is prepared to venture out on a five year mission of exploration in the Uncharted Zones. He is less prepared for the strange, fussy science officer assigned to his starship.The Erebor is many things. The Crown Jewel of the fleet. The first starship to go on a long term mission to unknown space. Home to a dying race of people. A family. This is the end and the beginning and all the inbetweens.





	1. The End

**Author's Note:**

> A Star Trek Fusion, thought up largely in part for a Fiki thing I want to write. Non-linear story that will hop all around their five year journey and deal with all manner of things, though some may span multiple chapters.

The room was dim when Bilbo woke up, the only light coming from the synthesized daylight streaming through the window. The curtain was pulled back, held open by a large hand, but not enough to let the light fall over the bed. The fake sunlight bathed the broad body he’d come to know so well in its rays, the silver in the other’s hair catching the light to form a warm golden-orange halo.

Bilbo pushed himself up, allowing the sheets to pool around his body. “Thorin? How long have you been awake?”

Thorin shifted slightly and held out a hand towards him, a silent acknowledgement, but didn’t turn around fully. His hair was loose waves, still mussed by sleep and Bilbo’s eager fingers the night before, there were long red scratches trailing down his back to the curve of his ass, and he stood totally bare.

And yet he still looked every inch the captain, the king that never was, that he was in full dress uniform standing before his crew, speaking to the representatives of the Free Races, or the remnants of the Ereborians. It was in the hard set of his jaw, downturn at the corners of his mouth, the tight furrow of  his brow, the way he held himself, drawn up as tall as he could, solid body tight and rigid. Bilbo had, no matter how he felt about Thorin, and he had felt many different ways, never had a moment where he didn’t understand how Thorin commanded attention, why eyes sought him out no matter where he was, and why rooms tended to go silent around him.

And yet it was at moments hard to reconcile the serious eyes and thoughtful tilt of lips he was intimately familiar with, with the searing gaze and heated declarations of love from just a few hours before. Thorin could be hard and unyielding in a way that made Bilbo think there might be something to the myths of his people being carved from stone, or fluid and able to bend when it suited him.

When he was close enough Thorin reached for him, tucked him against his side, and it was easier to put all the parts together again.

“Look, they’ve removed some of the tethers. Dry dock is nearly over.”

Bilbo knew where to look already, had sought out the sight of the _FRS Erebor_ himself many times as the sun rose and set, some part of him irrationally afraid that if he didn’t check in the ship would be gone. Not today though; today the ship he’d come to call home was in its usual place, tethered in place outside of the dome of the space station where it could be repaired and outfitted for it’s next mission. It stood out amongst the other ships, the only one made in the fashion of the Dwarrow races. Most of the Free Races ships were uniform in style, influenced by the Elves and Vulcans with a bit of Human mixed in, but the Erebor was different.

It was not sleek and built for speed, as the Elves and Vulcans favored, or balanced and versatile like Humans did. No, the Erebor was built like a fortress, hard angles and sharp edges, the outer shell a study in defense that no other FR ship could match, shields and weapons that could be strengthened or weakened, with power redirected near instantly on it’s captain’s command and living quarters buried deep towards the center, as protected as they could be. She’d been built to last, to take punishment and stand tall, to endure anything the universe may throw at her.

No one knew how to build something meant to venture into the unknown and protect a crew like the Dwarrow races did.

Bilbo had been happy to watch her be rebuilt, polished up and made like new, but now he found he dreaded the completion. Their time at the Rivendell Station was nearly at an end and that meant it was time to decide what to do next; Bilbo knew Thorin often thought of the same.

The Erebor was go out on another five year mission into the Unknown, continuing its mission of encountering new people, new planets for surveying and collecting potentially useful specimens, for scouting out Orc forces as needed, and most of all to go where none of the Free Races had yet gone. That was what she was built to do, above all else, and that was what she would do. The only question was who would command her.

Fili was young but even Thorin had to admit, somewhere between grudging respect and being so proud he looked like he might burst, that his nephew could do it. With Kili at his side and the crew behind them Bilbo had no doubt Fili could achieve anything he desired, easily, including taking over his uncle’s command.

Thorin had been on the ship most of his life in some capacity or another, it was all the home he had. It was where his family was, it gave him the ability to touch the stars the Ereborians so loved. Even now Bilbo could see the glitter of them in Thorin’s eyes, near madness at its most intense and a love he wasn’t so sure he could ever compete with.

Bilbo knew Thorin had never really imagined himself anywhere else.

But he’d suggested he might leave all the same to come to Shire with Bilbo, settle in sleepy little Hobbiton. There was a position there, at the small satellite university Starfleet had founded and Bilbo's mother had been the dean of until her death, the same university that had been holding a place for Bilbo for the past five years. There was a house, Bag End, lovingly built by Bilbo’s father, waiting for a Baggins to return to it. There was a garden and a large tree perfect for sleeping under, good weather to be enjoyed, streams to dip toes into (and swim, now that Bilbo had learned how), and a warm sun to laze beneath. Stars to see, yes, but the same stars every night, no new strange ways of seeing the same, or totally new ones to gaze at.

Bilbo wondered if he'd miss that fevered light in Thorin's eyes.

Thorin would be the only of his kind, at least for a time. Maybe there would be children, one day. The idea had appeal, they'd agreed, but neither was in a hurry. Family was something they’d both lost, both loved, both wanted, but there would be time, if they left the Erebor. A starship was no place for starting a family, and time was short and precious in space. Shire was a small planetoid for a small people, that seemed to have time for such things in spades and Bilbo longed for it with all his heart.

One day.

Soon, but not today. Not tomorrow either.

For now his life was Thorin’s nephews, the dark eyed half Betazoid and golden haired half Vulcan who called him uncle easily and happily and often made Bilbo think that family could start wherever you said it should. It was the Ri’s, Nori and Ori with their Orion heritage and all the good and ill and stress for Dori that could bring, with their small carefully separate sections of the ship, faking at maintaining distance and not keeping an eye on each other at all times. It was a cranky physician who was nearly stone deaf but refused to do anything about it, who used herbs first and technology only when he had to. It was Dwalin’s bluster and ever growing exotic weapons collection and his never ending annoyance at sharing security duties with Nori, Gloin’s legendary negotiation skills that had saved their lives more times than Bilbo could count, and Balin hoping that maybe this time their captain would show some diplomatic skills (he rarely did). It was the Urs, ruling engineering with iron fits and shutting even Thorin out on occasion, making toys for the children on the planets they touched down on, bringing back (rightfully gained, unlike Nori's) souvenirs to place in the library. It was their newest ensign, a pair of reluctant elves, a human man and his children, and 400 others who lived and worked on the Erebor.

They were coming to the end but weren’t quite there yet.

He leaned up in the same breath as tugging Thorin down, kissed him hard enough to, he hoped, show the other that he wasn’t ready to talk about the what next. Thorin responded without hesitation, breathed out through his mouth with a soft huff as he turned into him, and the arm holding him close slid over until a hand was cupping the back of his neck. They’d had time to get better at this, past the awkward hesitance of the first time, and Thorin knew how to melt him.

He hadn’t meant it to be anything more than a kiss, body still pleasantly worn and aching from the night before, but he could feel the intention in the press of Thorin’s fingers and way his tongue slid past his lips. He could still taste the Romulan liquor they’d ‘liberated’ on their last mission before coming back to port on Thorin’s lips and chased it in spite of himself, a touch of sugar and spice that warred with his usual distaste of kissing before brushing his teeth.

He liked to think he was becoming more flexible in his middle age.

Bilbo tilted his head up as fingers threaded through his hair and another hand grasped his hip. A touch of tongue, a warm slide as the kiss deepened and the tickle of Thorin’s beard and hair against his face, breath shared and soft sounds swallowed down kept him from protesting as the sheet he’d been holding tight around his body was tugged away and he was maneuvered to lean against the cool surface of the window. He hissed, arched up away from it, and moaned into Thorin’s mouth when he was lifted off his feet, back sliding over the window.

Wrapping his legs around a thick waist was muscle memory at this point and he knew it was in contrast with his head shake. “This is a window, Thorin! People can see us.”

“Oh? Is that how windows work? As always Mr. Baggins, you stun me with your ability to state the obvious.” A hand cupped his ass and fingers wiggled and pressed into where Bilbo was still slick and loose. His breath hitched and his body tightened; Thorin’s lips lost the downturn. “Anyone watching us this high up has earned the show.”

All the information on Ereborians, on all Dwarrow, being secretive and wary of outsiders seeing things they shouldn’t did not, Bilbo had long since learned, extend to a sense of bodily shame or modesty. Or any particular desire to not have sex in front of windows. Or all of sundry if the mood struck. When they found love they were entirely too happy to share it with the world. Much too happy. 

Bilbo glared, or would have had he not been clinging to Thorin’s shoulders and moaning against his collarbone shamelessly. He glared in spirit. Thorin hiked him up higher, used his weight to press him tight against the window, and pressed his lips to Bilbo’s neck, his shoulder, and back to his mouth in turn. His tongue muffled any noise and his teeth worried at Bilbo’s lips before another kiss soothed away any sting. His fingers curled and reached searchingly, teasingly. They pushed in as far as the angle would allow, rubbed and swirled deep.

Bilbo was gasping, mouth open and wet, lips swollen, heart beating wildly, erection trapped between his body and Throin’s furred stomach, dripping precum, when Thorin’s fingers snaked out of his body. He cracked open eyes he didn’t remember closing, squinted at Thorin, then huffed.

“Well?” His voice cracked but he refused to be (too) embarrassed by it. “Get on with it. ...I’d hate for you to strain your back holding me up for too long.”

That earned him a throaty chuckle and a nip to the sensitive tips of his ears before he was guided back to his feet and turned around. Rivendell stretched out beneath him with its many bridges, grassy areas, and buildings with curved roofs and open sides in the elvish style. He saw people, insect small from seventeen floors up, milling around.

"O-oh." He breathed out shakily, the flush creeping over his body turning fiery hot and spreading. Seventeen floors didn't seem nearly high enough up. 

Thorin’s hand skimmed his hip then slid down to wrap around his cock, pumping slowly. Bilbo gasped, went up onto his toes as his sweaty palms slipped over the glass. Thorin pressed him back down with his body, molded them together at the hip, drew his lower body away from the window just a little. Hot blunt pressure nudged against, pressed into him, and he took it easily, body open and willing. Bilbo let out a hiccuping moan, forehead pressed against the fogging window as he spread his feet further apart, pushed back into Thorin to encourage him to sink into him faster, and didn’t think about how moments like this were absolutely not going to happen back in Hobbiton.

No sex near, let alone against, windows, no sneaking around the ship, no moments under new skies without any care to who may see. The neighbors would die. Or run them out of town. Or both, in whatever order made the most sense.

But for now Hobbit propriety was a distant concern and Thorin, hot and thick inside of him, filling him completely, was a present one. The rasp of hair against his skin as lips and teeth attacked the back of his neck, a strong grip on his hip, and a hand around his dick moving in time with Thorin’s unhurried thrusts was the now, and it was good and toe curlingly real even as it was maddeningly slow. Thorin was in no rush and neither was Bilbo.  

There was no reason to chase the end today.

\---

_“The Uncharted Zones? Me? Out there? ...is that a joke?”_

_“Certainly not. The Erebor-”_

_“The Erebor? The FRS Erebor? This must be a joke, there are only Ereborians on that ship. Even I know that.”_

_“For now. Commissions are being opened to the Irohi and Ered Luin Dwarrow for this journey and I don’t see why a hobbit couldn’t be included.”_

_“Besides the obvious, you mean.”_

_“The ship needs a head for their science department and a botanist for their eco dome project; you have the rank and are the most qualified botanist in...well. Quite some time. And I would know.”_

_“Flattery won’t get you anywhere. I agreed when you asked me to come to Starfleet because it’s what my mother would have wanted but this is...no Hobbit has even left the planet for hundreds of years before my mother. You know the story.”_

_“Ah yes. A Sackville, some centuries ago, lead an expedition to your moons, decided it wasn’t very pleasant or worth the effort and none have left since. Until Belladonna and then you.”_

_“And not to go flying off to dangerous parts unknown for whatever reason that certainly doesn’t concern me at all.”_

_“We’re seeking other planets who may have been affected by the Smaug Wave. We seek allies, new technology, never before seen things, and I think you should be part of that Bilbo. You are meant for more than sitting in your armchair every night and are too young to be chained to a lecture hall.”_

_“There are Orcs out there. Goblins. Criminals. Pirates. ...Ereborians! I hear only Orcs are worse-”_

_"Bilbo! I should hope your time at Starfleet has not made you one to put faith in idle gossip born of long held grudges."_

_"...you're right. That was...I shouldn't say such things. ..._ _Can you guarantee the Erebor, and I, will return safely?”_

_“No. And if you do I am sure you will not be the same as when you left, dear boy. ”_

_“Gandalf-”_

_“I am sure that it will be the beginning of something amazing, if you allow it to be.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this universe 'Dwarf' is a catch all term for a few 'related' species, most notably for this story the Ereborians, the Irohis, and the Ered Luins. The same is true of 'Elf'. Think of it as Vulcans and Romulans, in having a common ancestor but being long separated.


	2. The beginning

Everyone knew the story of the Fall of Erebor. How Thror had lead them to wealth and prosperity through trade with the Free Races, how the small planet had been a major stopping point along the travel ways because of it’s prime location along the edge of the Alpha and Beta quadrants, and proximity to the Edge of the uncharted zones, a quiet sentry among the stars that had kept out threats for over a thousand years. How they refused to join the Alliance, convinced they would give and get nothing in return for their efforts, and how, when the Orcs had come, Thror had been too proud to ask for help until it was far too late.

How Greenwood and Dale had both gotten the call for help but only Dale came and how, when the Orcs unleashed the Smaug Wave Erebor and Dale burned while Greenwood survived. How they wandered for at time in two massive unnamed fortress starships, their number so reduced that they barely filled what amounted to two small cities. How after a failed attempt to retake the abandoned planetoid Khazad-dûm, once an outpost under the joint rule of the Ereborians, the Irohis, and the Ered Luins, and the death of Thror there was no choice but to turn to the Allied Free Races and come under their umbrella.

How Thrain had vanished shortly after, perhaps in shame for bringing his once mighty race crawling and begging at the feet of those they’d once rejected.

Everyone heard the quiet talk about how the Ereborians should have been turned away, how their misfortune was their own doing and how accepting them now as equals, when they had absolutely nothing to offer, was folly. They spoke of how they were arrogant and secretive, even in their destruction, and did not fit among the Free Races.

How, more than any other of the already not fully accepted Dwarrow species, those of Erebor had to be watched and contained.

In the years following Thrain’s disappearance the two great starships were repurposed, named The Erebor and The Lonely, and put to work. The Lonely remained a city-ship, housing civilians in orbit around Ered Luin, and the Erebor became part of the fleet proper, running exploration missions, shuttling trade goods, and the like.

When Thorin was young and dreaming of one day sitting in the captain’s seat of the ship that would come to be The Erebor he’d imagined a life flying among the stars, visiting planets no one had been to before, of excitement and leaving a lasting mark on the universe, as his father had wanted to do and his grandfather before him. Their people were dying out, would in a few generations without mixing with other species, his own nephews were half-Ereborians so he knew that fact very well, and much of their culture had been lost with their home planet. All they had left now was the Erebor, their memories, and whatever they could leave behind out there, amongst the stars.

That was why when the opportunity to go on a five year mission to the uncharted zones had come up Thorin had been the first in line to agree to take a ship out. A chance to see new planets, to make contact with now people, to maybe find a new world for the Ereborians? Those were all things that couldn’t be passed up. He had been ready to strike out the minute Admiral Gandalf had informed him he would take the helm of the Erebor and to begin picking his crew.

And that was where the less glamorous side of being a captain, the part he hadn’t ever seen in all his years trailing behind his grandfather, father, and then Fundin (who had happily retired and put all of his power behind Thorin’s bid for captaincy), came in. The boring things he’d never realized kept the ship running, and Mahal knew there were a lot of boring things. Requisitions, transfer requests, keeping up on crew training, his own training, signing off on travel forms, sorting through star charts (useless as they may turn out to be), pouring over personnel file after file to decide who would be best for the mission.

Not that there was a lot of wiggle room there, he needed a crew of roughly four hundred and little more than that had offered their services. Many Ereborians were content to live on the Lonely and had no desire to strike out; even among the crew that had worked under Fundin Thorin had signed a good many requests to transfer off ship.

It grated, had they fallen so far that Ereborians now languished in fear and cowardice where once they had dreamed of seeing and knowing all there was to know, but there was nothing to be done about it.

Except do what hadn’t been done in over a hundred and seventy-five and open up the Erebor to those not of their home world. So far none but their kind had walked the ship; Thorin didn’t know if that was the work of the alliance, allowing them this one relatively small thing to keep to themselves, or just that none but them wanted to crew it. Either way that would have to change, much as he hated it.

But not as much as he hated paperwork. It was boring and endless, every report he sent off seemed to have three more in its place. It was not at all what he’d pictured this mission and taking control of the Erebor would involve.

He was thoroughly disillusioned.

Which was why he had Fili working alongside him to try and keep all the work controlled and keeping to the tight timeline. It was absolutely so his third in command and helmsman, who would hopefully one day take the helm of the ship when Thorin stepped down, could see it wasn’t all fun and games, and not at all because Thorin found himself wanting to punch his console every time a new request or report rolled in. It was important training and perhaps if Fundin had let Thorin do the same when he’d been his second he would have been more prepared for the drudgery of reading and signing twenty four different requests for lab equipment.

“Or you would have decided to not put in the bid for captain to avoid it.” Fili drawled. He was focused on his tablet, fingers flying across its surface, and occasionally looking at something his brother would point out on the pad he was holding, but it seemed he’d been able to spare a little attention for Throin’s grumbling. Not enough attention to look up at him or shift his hand from where it was linked with Kili’s, but enough to infuse his words with an impressive amount of skepticism and derision.

Impressive for a Vulcan anyway. 

Thorin felt it best to not dignify that with a response or distract his nephews from the task of filling out their Medical department, something he didn’t want done half-assed (he had, in fact, been reluctant to let them work on it together) and instead turned to his brother. Frerin was pouring over diagrams for the Erebor and, with the help of the current Chief Engineer (a good dwarrow who had decided that he was much too old for such adventures), was working on what was essentially rebuilding the Erebor from the studs up.

She was a good ship, strong and dependable, a home, a fortress, and a way of life for them, and had been the peak of their technology at the time. She was Ereborian made, dwarrow through and through. And she was nearly three centuries old. Fine for hauling cargo and diplomates and providing support at border skirmishes, but less so for traveling at new levels of warp speed and dealing with potentially hostile forces.

They were going to have to take on some outside technology but Frerin was doing his best to keep it as minimal as possible by forcing the tech to adapt to the Erebor instead of changing the ship to suit. It was complicated and tedious and while Thorin didn’t envy his brother the task there was no one else he would have selected for it.

Or for the post as his first officer.

It probably looked like nepotism from the outside to have Thorin placing his brother and nephew as his first and second but those of Erebor knew there was no one better suited for the task. (And they were often accused of promoting their fellows to undeserved positions and not being as trained as their counterparts among the other races anyway so it mattered little.) They were prodigies, the both of them, Frerin one of the most well regarded minds in regards to engineering, warp technology, and ship building in the Alliance and Fili having taken to piloting better than some took to walking. If they weren’t Ereborian they’d be sought after by just about every ship in the fleet, without question, and Frerin would likely to be commanding his own crew. Fili would be well on his way to doing the same.

The worst part, by far, was that they both knew it and were borderline intolerable because of it.

The Golden Princes of Erebor, as some called them, through their family had given up royalty when their planet was reduced to ashes.  

Thorin didn’t have any monikers so flattering (Unless ‘Tyrant’ and ‘Taskmaster’ were flattering these days) and, though he probably deserved them, neither did Kili. Many a time he’d caught his youngest nephew’s eye and known instinctually that Kili was thinking the same thing he was ‘it’s not easy standing beside a prodigy and having nothing special to offer’.

Kili handled it...differently than Thorin did. Very differently.

Thorin didn’t like to think about what exactly ‘standing beside’ meant to his nephews. Or how very empty Kili’s personal quarters were.

“How-” Thorin started only to have Frerin hold up a hand to stop him.

“If you ask me how it’s going, _again_ , I will kill you.” Frerin grumbled. “I sent you some personnel files, for engineering. Bifur Loneson, he’s working a transport right now but he graduated from the Academy with honors and a major in theoretical physics. I sent him some schematics and he responded with some...interesting thoughts.”  

Thorin nodded and, all too happy to banish the twenty some odd notices from their fledgling science department from his sight (what could they possibly need so many test tubes for anyway?), pulled up the files in question.

Or would have, if a message from Gandalf hadn’t been sitting right below the one from Frerin, marked urgent. He very much doubted it was actually urgent, Gandalf had a tendency to exaggerate (and meddle, and obfuscate, and only be where he wasn’t wanted) but it wouldn’t do to ignore a message from the man who’d pushed for him and the Erebor for the five year mission, when the Allied Council had been leaning towards Dain of the Irohis.

“A hobbit?” He asked, eyebrows jumping up in shock. “Gandalf is sending us a Hobbit?”

He knew of Hobbits, the small creatures of the planet Shire, vaguely. They were known for never leaving their planet, in spite of being part of the Free Races. And never was not an exaggeration but statement of fact; in spite of being spaceflight capable they found nothing enticing about the universe and cared not for the many secrets out there. It was a mentality Thorin couldn’t begin to understand personally let alone on a species wide level.

There was no way a Hobbit had agreed to come with them to spend five years, at least, in the Uncharted Zones.

What was Gandalf playing at?

\---

Gandalf was indeed sending them, or rather had sent, a hobbit for their crew. Commander Bilbo Baggins, a professor of botany, known for his work in terraforming, was to head up their bio-globe project as well as oversee the entire Science department. He was signed on for at least the first year, with the option to remain longer, and Gandalf would not hear any arguments against it.

He cared not that his hobbit had no ship experience, both crewing and living on one, had no real space hours logged, no weapons training on his file, had never commanded a crew and, in fact, never headed anything at all. He was unbelievably unfit for the mission; Thorin was positive it would be better to forgo a botanist completely and let Oin run both medical and science rather than bring on a Hobbit.

Gandalf had ignored all of his logical protests, smiled grimly, and told him “You needed a botanist and a botanist for this mission is what I’ve sent you.”

Thorin didn’t exactly have the authority to deny an admiral and so here he was, on the day of the Hobbit’s scheduled arrival, waiting with Dwalin for the shuttle bringing their latest crew member on board. The Erebor was nearly ready to go out for it’s shakedown flight the next day and with the arrival of Commander Baggins they would have all the hands on board they required. It would only be a skeleton crew but a science officer was a must. The Allied High Command wouldn’t allow them to go out, even for the a systems test, without the position filled.

Unfortunately.

He wasn’t pleased with the development. Every other person on board had been hand chosen by himself (or by his closest officers and then signed off on by him) but this one small Hobbit had been forced upon him, in spite of his protests. The loss of control in what he’d been assured would be *his* mission was...infuriating. It would have been one thing, though, if at least this unwelcome addition were qualified but instead they were to be saddled with someone who would need to be trained and looked after instead of a person who could aid them.

He couldn’t figure out Gandalf’s motives. What was to be gained by taking on a burden like this? Why was Gandalf so adamant?

“Captain.” Fili stepped off of the shuttle first and stood at attention, hands clasped behind his back and face near blank of emotion. He looked very much the part-Vulcan that he was, light hair and eyes aside, to the untrained eye. To Thorin he looked amused, a slightly upturn of the lips and a brightness to his eyes that few would notice.

“Sub-Commander.” Thorin greeted, inclining his head slightly. Then, frowning, he glanced back at the shuttle. “And where is Gandalf’s Hobbit?”

“I don’t think I should like to be called anyone’s anything, least of all Gandalf’s.” A voice declared a second before a figure, loaded down in bags and a precariously stacked collection of reinforced metal cases, wobbled out of the shuttle. Thorin could just barely see, when he leaned to the side to peer from the side, a shock of curly honey colored hair. And, when he looked down, very large, very bare, very hairy feet.

The rumors about hobbits not wearing shoes were not just stories, it seemed, nor was what Thorin had read about them being smaller than the Dwarrow race. Dwarrows were shorter than men tended to run, though not by much (and in many cases not all with the mixing that was becoming more and more common) and this Hobbit was smaller still. Thorin would have bet credits on him being a few inches short of five feet.

“...Commander Baggins?”

There was beat, punctuated by bare feet feet shuffling across the floor, and then a startled yelp.

“...oh! That’s me, isn’t it?” The stack of cases laughed anxiously and swayed dangerously. “I suppose it is, now. Well! Um. Hello, Captain Thrainson. ...that is you, isn’t it? I’m afraid I can’t see you but I assume.”

Thorin’s eyes cut to the side to meet Dwalin’s bland look. “Yes. Welcome to the Erebor, Commander Baggins. Sub-Commander Disson will help you take your...things to your quarters-”

“No no no!” The stack trembled and the shock of hair behind it shook back and forth. Thorin stared, startled by the fierce protest. “I must go to the dome and begin to set up before the flight tomorrow. Some things I’ve been working on for one of the bio-bubbles, I actually think you and your crew may be interested in, if it works out. I’m unsure if it will, I haven’t had much time and the samples took some doing to get, and they’re only just growing, and the accuracy is questionable, considering the circumstances, but-”

“The dome isn’t ready yet.” Thorin broke in, mouth twisting downward. “It’s non-essential to the shakedown flight-” The Hobbit’s huff sounded distinctly offended. Thorin ignored it; the dome was a glorified park, separated into various temperature zones and outfitted with smaller ‘environmental’ bubbles. He didn’t see the point of it at all but especially not for the shakedown. “But I can have someone take what you’d like down so you can settle in and-”

Another headshake. “No, I must insist I do this myself. And I’ll deal with the dome as well Captain, no need to worry. It’s very sensitive equipment and seedlings, from Shire and other places, to get the bubbles going. Just point me in the right direction, I wouldn’t want to put any of your crew out or-”

"The dome isn't ready." Thorin repeated. "Nor will it be by shakedown. All non-essential areas run a risk of losing life support-"

"That won't do at all." The stack of cases told him. "Some of the seedlings are very sensitive, Captain Thrainson, temperature and atmosphere at least will need to be regulated before we leave port tomorrow." 

Thorin scowled then, realizing the hobbit couldn't see it, sighed his frustration. "That won't be-" 

"I must insist. The batteries in the cases won't last much longer and, as I said, these are very sensitive specimens and one of a kind besides. Their planet of origin-" 

The rest was lost in a panicked yelp and a clatter as the cases, finally, gave in to gravity and their precarious placement. The sound of metal impacting metal echoed sharply around them. The Hobbit gasped then, sputtering frantically, began to attempt to gather up his cases. The bags hanging from his arms, heavy and loaded down, began to cause trouble almost immediately, dragging on the floor and bumping into his legs. A mumble of ‘Oh, bother it all’ slipped past the hobbit’s lips as something that sounded like broken glass tinkled musically when one of the bags collided with a case.

Thorin sighed then gestured for Fili to help. “Take Commander Baggins to the dome, please. Help him as best you can.”

Fili nodded then, with an arching of an eyebrow that was nearly laughter as far as public gestures went, bent to help the hobbit. Thorin spun on his heel and strode out of the shuttle bay, Dwalin at his side.

“That’s going to work out.” His security officer said, sotto voce.

Thorin pinched the bridge of his nose. “He looks more like a student than an explorer.”

And far too...soft. Round cheeked, soft eyed, hair that didn’t seem to meet the short cropped standards of most of the Free Races or the longer, braided, styles of the Dwarrow and Elven races, an unlined and very young face.

Thorin was not impressed.

\---

The launch went well, with far less issues than Frerin and Bifur had prepared them for. There was some shaking as their tethers dropped and they pulled away, some flickering lights and loss of systems in some of the non-essential areas as they jumped to warp, and some odd noises from the transporter but, beyond that, nothing at all. Frerin and Bifur both assured him it was a grand success by all measurable standards and that a evening meal with the entire shakedown crew and some Ered Luin ale their chef had 'found somewhere in the galley' was in order. 

Kili slid through the doors, a smile on his lips. He stopped briefly to speak to Tauriel and Bard (Thorin wasn't pleased with the presence of a she-elf or a Dalian either but at least he'd been able to choose the two he'd take, rather than having them already picked out and dumped on him like a bucket of ice water.)  before beelining to their table and claiming the seat next to his brother. Thorin glanced down, saw Kili and Fili's fingers brush lightly, and just barely kept from rolling his eyes. Frerin snorted into his mug then, when Thorin shot him a look, cleared his throat noisily. 

"Kili, where's Commander Baggins? I thought you were going to collect him." 

Kili smirked. "Motion sickness. The dome lost gravity and lights when we set out; he didn't react well."

"He's going to love the transporter." Frerin said. Then tilted his head to the side and frowned thoughtfully. "Actually. He's about the right size for some test runs. I'm sure that with a little work we could make it safe for living things to use."

Thorin was fairly certain that he should, as captain, put a halt to the conversation that exploded between Frerin and Bifur, Iglishmek formed so swiftly that, with Bifur's unique 'dialect' factored in, he couldn't keep up in spite of being more or less fluent. But Frerin had a familiar fevered light in his eyes and Bifur had already whipped out his datapad and begun using his finger to sketch something out; Thorin knew a lost battle when he saw it. He would step in, later, if it seemed like there would be a problem for their...motion sick science chief. 

Motion sickness! On a starship! 

"He says he has specimens from Erebor." Ori's excited voice drew his attention to the table closest to them. "He's setting aside a bio-bubble for them." 

"Impossible lad." Balin said, a familiar sad note coloring his words. "We didn't have time for seeds and plants when we were running from the wave, and there's nothing left now. It's all gone. I don't know what Commander Baggins thinks he has but it's not from Erebor." 

Thorin could hear the frown in Ori's voice. "Well. I don't know but he seems to believe it. He's very proud of it, and excited. He was going on and one. ...before the blackout. And the floating. And the puking." 

Thorin hummed to himself, memories of rocky mountains and tough, gnarled planets that grew to cling to outcroppings and ledges filling his mind then, with a scoff, he dismissed them. Balin was right, of course. Erebor was gone and Commander Baggins was foolish if he thought he'd found something from it. 

Thorin didn't care much for fools. 


	3. All I Want

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fili, Kili, the nature of being half-dwarven and Pon-Farr. Or: Fili would never say outloud that Kili was made for him but they both know it’s true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember these are nonlinear bits, so we’re jumping ahead into the journey by about eighteen months here.

 

The problem was that Kili was his. That was a horrifically archaic way to put things and his brother would punch him in the nose if he knew that Fili’s thoughts not only strayed that way but that he knew it to be true deep in the marrow of his bones, but nonetheless...Kili was his. His best friend, his brother, his lover and all the spaces in between were occupied by Kili.

And that was why he was going to have to rip Bard’s spine out for putting his hands all over what was his. It was the only way to deal with this white hot, burning rage that insisted on settling in his belly and refused to be dismissed. Unfortunate because he liked Bard, honestly he did, and finding a new navigator was going to be a real pain. Thorin was going to furious, as he had a very strict ‘only the captain can kill the crew’ rule he expected everyone to adhere to. Bard’s children would be without a father, a terrible thing. Kili would probably stop talking to him for a few days.

But it had to be done.

Fili would never say outloud that Kili had been made for him, not in a metaphysical or spiritual sense but in that their mother had literally considered her donor options among the species with telepathic and empathic abilities to be sure her second child would relate to her first. She hadn’t wanted Fili to be all alone in the world, but also had no interest in guiding another half-Vulcan through the long awful stretch of toddler years.

Dis would never say such a thing either; she’d wanted her second son just as much as the first, hadn’t felt complete until she’d had them both in her arms, and Kili was so much more than just a companion for Fili to her, whatever her original intention may have been.

Kili would probably say it, sometimes happily and other times bitterly, both thankful and hateful for it in equal measure.

But said or not they all knew it to be true, in so far as such a thing could be true, and had struggled through all the good and bad such a thing brought. Kili had been made for Fili, had always been his.

They’d been close all their lives, brothers and best friends from the moment Kili was placed in his arms as a babe, and they’d slogged through dealing with their status as ‘princes’ of the former royal line, of being half breeds, of being so inherently different together. Meditation with Vulcan tutors, thinking games with Betazoid tutors, at first done side by side as they struggled to find a way that worked for them. And then, when Fili’s tutors decided the very free, very open, and emotional ways of his brother’s people were more hindrance than anything and joint lessons would be done away with, they worked secretly, trading information in the quiet of night and over holo recordings. They carefully used each other as test subjects as they learned control, restraint, and how to use the other to stay stable.  

Fili would learn to shy away from the touch of all but his brother, as the telepathy inherent in his Vulcan heritage often caused him pain, and Kili would build walls to temper his empathy, keeping all but Fili out. With a touch they could know anything the other knew, feel what he felt, and there was never a need for anyone else in their lives. Blocking others out became as natural as breathing, a comfort in a world where they were different and never allowed to forget it.

They had only each other for far too long.

In hindsight Fili could see where a codependency had been formed early, too early and been allowed to take root too deeply. He could see where FiliandKili, instead of just Fili and Kili, had become too entwined with who they would grow to become.

Vulcan children were often bonded to another, their intended mate, when they were seven or eight but by that time Fili had already formed a bond with his brother. Unguided, purely on instinct and based in a need he couldn't articulate to anyone at the time, he had opened up his mind to Kili and carved out a space that only his brother could ever occupy. It wasn't unheard of among siblings, and was even common among Vulcan twins, and so their respective tutors let it lie, imagining it to be a platonic bond.

It would help ground him they'd said. His dwarven nature made him volatile and dangerous, slow to accept the separation from emotions Vulcans were trained to embrace (the passions of Ereborians seemed to run just as deep as the ones the Vulcans denied themselves), but a bond might help in that regard. Kili would give him something to follow back when he went too deep into his own head or his mental state became unmanageable. It was a good thing, everyone had said and Dis had agreed.  

By the time anyone had realized otherwise it's been too late. Separations, arranged by their mother and tutors under the guise of Fili needing time among Vulcans and Kili among Betazoids, would do little to dim the connection between them and, in the end, did far more harm than good. They'd make friends, Fili in Ori and Gimli, other half breeds, and Kili in just about everyone he met because outside of other dwarrows no one could resist Kili. They would resist, move forward with stuttered breaths and hesitant steps then step back, run away from each other, and their eyes would roam but what was done was done.

They would always come back to each other.

Fili accepted that it was his fault. Seven year old Fili, still a toddler by dwarf standards but old enough to know better by Vulcan ones, had laid a claim on two year old Kili and here they were, eighty years later, navigating the consequences.

Which included, apparently, Fili watching his brother wrestle with the ship’s navigator, Bard Bowman. They were both stripped down to nothing but their workout shorts, barefoot in the center of the ring, sweat glistening off their skin and weighing down their dark hair. Both were breathing hard but wearing face splitting grins. They circled each other, ducked and evaded, struck out and dodged, gripped and collided with practiced ease. Their bodies twisted together, heaving as they strained and fought before one was finally pinned.

Then they stood up and started again.

Fili was privately seething, and distractingly horny, neither of which was like him at all.

“You know Bard is married, right?” Ori asked, a touch of humor Fili wasn’t entirely sure he liked in the other’s tone. Ori wasn’t much for hanging out in the gym at all but he’d come down with Fili after breakfast with the rest of the night rotation, looking enviably comfortable in not but leggings and a sweater than Fili suspected belonged to someone else with how comically large it was.

Kili had asked after the sweater before being lured away by Bard but other than some muttering a flush that had made the green tint to Ori’s skin more prominent no information was forthcoming. The younger dwarf had clammed up after that and Fili had been content to leave him to his silence in favor of alternating between hateful looks and trying to will away a very ill timed erection.  

He had thought Ori was working on transcribing notes from the last officer meeting (off the clock but Fili knew getting Ori to leave work for later was a battle not worth fighting. He took his duties as Thorin and Frerin’s yeoman entirely too seriously for Fili’s liking.) but it seemed he'd been wrong. And that his seething was more obvious than he had thought.

To be perfectly honest he’d been feeling...not quite right for a few days. Irritated. Prone to snapping at things that he would normally just shake his head and let go. Unable to sleep and yet lethargic. More preoccupied with Kili than he usually was, which was saying something because Fili had the self awareness to know he was obsessed at the best of times.  

“I know.” Bard’s wife was a Betazoid, like Kili, and worked in medical. And was very pregnant with their second child. She and Kili were good friends and she seemed to like Fili as much as anyone did.

“And so is Kili, more or less.”

Fili’s head snapped around so fast his braids smacked him in the face and his heart leapt into his throat, turning his protest into a strangled . The sting was forgotten in the face of Ori’s knowing look. There was no judgement to be found on Ori’s face, just something calm and sympathetic, and maybe a little bit amused.

He hesitated over what to say. Denial was illogical, as Ori clearly knew and was being very ‘Ori’ about it. But admitting it wasn’t so easy a thing.

He and Kili were...well. Fili didn't exactly go around telling people he was fucking his younger brother and he liked to think they were fairly discreet. The family knew, had known where it was going to end up before Fili and Kili had known it, but outside of that Fili had never told anyone. Not even Ori, who stood as his closest friend outside of Kili, but after over a year together on the Erebor it probably wasn't that surprising that those closest to them had noticed things.

It was easier to hide when they hadn’t seen each other every day and could go to different homes at night than it was now, when they all lived on the same floor of the living quarters.

...though it could be argued that Kili’s actual room was two floors below with the rest of the security and weapons department and that his constant presence in the command hall was part of what gave them away. Fili did put some effort into not spending every night together and making Kili put in enough appearances with his roommate to not be reported missing (in fact they’d been apart the past three rotations, Kili working the back twelve and Fili the front twelve.) Displays of affection were kept to a minimum on duty and in public. They’d long since learned to control the need to reach out or look around the room for the other constantly.

But there was only so many secrets that could survive close quarters living.

He ducked his head and cleared his throat. “I'm just-”

“Overwhelmingly, stupidly, jealous?”

Fili stared intently at his boots. “Vulcans don't experience jealousy.”

He didn’t need to see Ori to know the other wearing an annoyed expression. “You were growling. Loudly.”

“Vulcans don’t growl.”

“Must be the dwarrow in you doing the growling then.” Ori said tartly then, voice dropping to a whisper, leaned closer to him. Fili was generally unaffected by Orions (and Ori most of all since, he saw him as another brother. The irony wasn’t lost on him.) but his skin prickled with heat and a wave of dizziness washed over him nonetheless. “You’ve been acting strange all week. Maybe it’s time to visit Oin.”  

Fili tried to mull that over, bothered that he was out of sorts enough that it had been noticed, but a thump and shout from the ring drew his gaze back to it to find Kili pinned and Bard sitting smugly on his back, a hand on the back of Kili’s head to keep him down. Fili’s eyes zeroed in on the fingers tangled in his brother’s hair.

Rational thought, worn down and stretched thin, threw up its hands in defeat, packed up it’s bags, and fled for a place it’d be more appreciated. Fili didn’t notice it leave, too busy storming across the gym. The wandering crowd, some running on the track that circled the sparring rings and others headed between machines, all hastily moved out of his way and a hush fell over their section of the large room, not that Fili noticed it.

He also missed Ori chasing after him as well as his soft: “I wonder if ‘Here lies Bard, he knew not what he did and deserved better’ is too long to fit on a tombstone.”

Bard was smarter than Ori gave him credit for. He looked up, caught Fili’s eye, and was up and on his feet before Fili crossed over the line into the ring. Kili let out an exaggerated groan of pain as he rolled over onto his back; Fili’s cock, which had decided to become a full on traitor, twitched at the sight of his brother stretched out, hair in disarray, eyes bright, with the beginning of bruises forming on his skin. On the heels of a flush of arousal came the bubbling anger because those were not his bruises on his brother’s skin, weren’t marks he’d left behind.

“That was-Fili?” Kili peered up at him, brows knitting together. “Did you decide to spar after all? I thought you didn’t feel well?”

Fili blinked slowly, taking far more time than he knew was normal, then nodded, eyes sliding over to Bard. “I will, if Bard doesn’t mind.” That he was going to kill him.

He suspected his murderous intent showed on his face because Bard held up his hands in front of him in a sign of peace. “Feel free. I wanted to talk to Ori about...um. Maps. So why don’t you two go a few rounds while I do that?”

That was...not what Fili had had in mind.

“Maps?” Kili echoed, mouth twisting down into a frown. “You want to talk to Ori about maps.”

Bard looked at Ori, a helpless expression on his face, and the yeoman sprung to action, nodding with entirely too much enthusiasm. “Yes! Old maps! Of. What we think the Delta Quadrant looks like. Bard is interested in that sort of thing...as a navigator.”

Kili looked skeptical but waved them off without protest. Fili had never seen Bard look as grateful as he did when Ori hooked him by the elbow and lead him away a few paces past the edge of red line that marked the edge of the ring. Ori stopped, glanced back at Fili, winced, and then continued dragging Bard further away.

“Weird.” Kili said before shrugging, visibly dismissing the event, and thrusting his hand up towards Fili. He stared at it, tracing the long fingers and blunt nails before taking hold to haul his brother up.

They didn’t need to touch for him to feel Kili’s empathy; Kili could project with the best of them when he wanted to. But touch was how Fili’s telepathy worked and, in that way, the flow between them worked best with contact. A feedback loop started, blurring the edges between thought and feeling as well as what came from who. When they opened up completely it was almost like being one person.

This wasn’t that. It was just a quick flash, a surge of connection coming to life and then flickering out as they both clamped down on it to keep it from swelling out of control, as Kili rose to his feet but it was enough.

Kili shivered, dark eyes taking on a glassy sheen, and his tongue darted out to lick his lips. Fili watched the motion, air catching in his lungs and throat tightening. They fell into place wordlessly, Kili stepping back a few steps as Fili shook the tension from his body as best he could. He was aware of the eyes on them, the crew made curious by Fili’s show of anger when normally he gave away nothing but Vulcan indifference.

Most of them had no idea that he was pretty terrible at putting logic first (He’d done his best but it just wasn’t dwarf nature to not follow their hearts and at the end of the day Fili would always been more dwarf than Vulcan) but very good at putting forth a neutral face in public.

Fili moved first, lunged for his brother without warning. Kili’s eyes widened slightly, the only hint of his surprise, and then he was dancing just out of range and swinging a fist around. Fili avoided it, stepped into Kili’s space, swung back but missed, let Kili put space back between them. A breath, a quirked eyebrow, and then they were moving again.

He could always read Kili perfectly, knew every twitch and twist that body was capable of, but today he couldn’t. His vision was red around the edges, clouded by a haze he couldn’t blink away, and he could do nothing but attack harder, recklessly, to get around it. Punch, dodge, lock together then break apart with a hard shove, try to sweep out the legs, snarl when Kili again used speed and superior agility to get back just of Fili’s reach but still keep Fili well within in his own. Start again to close the distance, glancing blows here and there.

The haze pressed in, painted more red over his eyes. Block, attack, fall back, come around again, push push; it all blended and tumbled together until he was just reacting to his brother. Memory and instinct took control, pushed away his thoughts, guided him to meet the body he knew like it was his own. Something animal, near feral, rose up and told him to push harder, to prove that he could win this, win Kili, that he was-

What was he?

Kili’s face was blank but there were bursts of feeling when their skin met, confusion, worry, realization that crawled over Fili’s skin like a thousand insects (Had it been seven years already? Pon Farr, now? With Kili? He couldn’t-), then heat, nothing but heat and want and reassurance strong enough to make Fili stagger under the weight.

Kili was on him, grabbing his arm and pivoting, using Fili’s own momentum to take him off his feet and slam him to the ground, knocking the air out his lungs. Kili followed him down, put a knee in his back to keep him there but instead of waiting for Fili to signal that he yielded he leaned closer.

“We can skip the next round.”

“Mahal, yes.”

He would just have to kill Bard later.

Priorities.  

\---

The door wasn’t quite shut behind them when Fili shoved his brother onto the bed and followed him down, crawling into his space to slot himself between lean legs. His hands tugged at the hem of the shirt Kili had insisted on putting back on as their mouths collided, Kili leaning up to meet him. Fingers tangled in his hair and he felt the metal clip he used to secure it being tugged away, heard it hitting the floor when Kili tossed it aside.

Fili knew he ran hot, a Vulcan trait, but Kili’s gasp of “You’re burning up!” when hands pushed under his shirt gave him a moment’s pause. Just a moment before he was licking in Kili’s mouth, rocking into the cradle of his hips, and dragging his fingers and nails along whatever skin he could reach. Kili arched up against him, moaning into his mouth and tugging his hair harder.

Clothes came off in a flurry of movement and Kili accepted being rolled onto his front with no complaint. Fili tried to catch his breath, to back off to do the next part right, to not hurt his brother but he’d scarcely gotten his fingers into Kili’s body when the heel of his brother’s foot dug into his thigh sharply.

“It’s fine, hurry up!”

Fili’s mouth was suddenly drier than he felt it ought to be. “I’ll hurt you.”

Kili turned his head enough to fix one heavy lidded eye on him. “Okay.”

He wanted to say that his brother didn’t know what he was agreeing to, that pon-farr was loathsome and turned much better Vulcans into beasts, that people *died*, that Fili didn’t know how to do this, not really. Not with someone who didn’t know what they were doing either, someone who meant as much to him as Kili did, not when he’d regret doing him harm later. Not when he wanted to paint Kili’s skin in marks from his fingers and teeth, turn him black and blue for the rest of the crew to see.

But instead he snapped, whatever restraint had gotten him up to his quarters and kept him from trying to mount his brother in the elevator dashed against the rocks of Kili’s easy acceptance. He drapped himself over Kili, lined up to push in with one brutal thrust and muffled a cry by biting into his brother’s shoulder.

He tasted metal on his tongue.

Kili let out a choked off curse and one of his hands shot out to slam against the wall above his head. His body clenched, vice tight and soft around him. Fili didn’t stop, dragged back then pressed in again just as hard as the first time, drove a yelp from his brother. He leaned into it, put his weight and considerable strength behind his thrusts, dug his fingers into Kili’s hips and didn’t think about about how being Vulcan made him stronger than even a Dwarf was. He bit and scratched long raised lines, smelled blood and sweat heavy in the air, and he gave into it, chased after it.

Kili cried out, wordless sounds, half formed words that become nothing at all, and sometimes the start of Fili’s name, sharp moans of ‘Fee, Fee!’ that stoked the fire spreading through his body. A shift and a hard roll of his hips made his brother scream and arch then slide down, face pressing into the tangled sheets as his backside rose up, pressed back into him greedily. He slipped a hand up along a sweat covered spine to press against the back of his neck, curl around it and hold him fast.

He thrust harder, faster, frantic, vision quaking when a burst of feeling slipped into him from Kili, urged him to give more, to take what he needed. Kili was right there, open and allowing him further in if he wanted, without hesitation. He knew what Fili needed, could see it all like they were his own thoughts, and it never occurred to him to not give it. He dropped down again, pressed his forehead to the back of Kili’s neck and touched the side of his face, pressed his mind in.

Kili fell open beneath him easily, left himself bare, swept him up in a wave of emotion that seared him inside out, and pulled him in deeper.

It was, when he reflected back on, rather dramatic. Brains settling into the same wavelength, hearts beating together, feeling the same thing in the same breath. In the moment it was the most mind shattering orgasm he’d ever had, doubled and thrown back at him.

“Wow.”

“Yeah.”

“...twenty minutes and I could probably go again.” Kili offered, as if he wasn’t completely limp and looking utterly fucked out, too tired to even tell Fili to get off of, or out of, him. “We’re going again, right?”

A swell of affection made it hard to speak beyond a croaked out “Sure.”

\---

Fili has always known that the man he was named for, his mother’s dead husband, wasn’t his biological father. Even if he hadn’t been able to tell he was not a full dwarf his mother had never tried to hide the truth from him or pretend that his birth was anything other than what it was.

Fimli had been one of the Erebor survivors, a miner turned soldier after their planet’s destruction. He’d managed to catch the eye of Dis Thraindoter, former princess, somewhere among the stars and after a brief courtship they’d married. Within a decade Fimli had been dead, lost in one of the alpha quadrant skirmishes with the Orcs before his eightieth year, and Dis had closed her heart to that sort of love.

The Dwarf races, spread apart and different as they were, had a few common myths. One was that they had been carved from stone by their maker who loved them above all but his own maker. Another was that they only loved once and that if that love was rejected or lost their hearts would turn to stone in their chests, allowing no others to touch it. They would dedicate themselves to their craft and their people until they returned to the stone, but never would they love again.  

Fili knew this wasn’t true. While it was a fact that he was something of an experiment, a mixing of things that had likely never meant to be mixed, he also knew that his mother loved him dearly. He knew she had wanted him more than she’d wanted anything else in all her life, except for when she’d decided to have Kili. Her heart was as far from closed as could be.

If his own existence wasn’t proof enough the truth of his parentage was. When Dis, by then a respected ambassador for her people and their representative in the Free Races Council, had begun to consider children she’d known without question a dwarf wouldn’t do, and especially not an Ereborian. She couldn’t, she’d told Fili once while trying to explain why he was so different from everyone around him (why was his skin this strange color, his ears pointed like the elves they hated, why did he bleed dark and green), bare the idea of having the child of a dwarf other than her lost Fimli.

She’d found a Vulcan donor. Supposedly she knew not who it was, and had never been inclined to find out, but Fili had vague memories of a Vulcan who had looked at him with open awe, touched the tips of his ears, and insisted on trying to lead him through some basic breathing exercises that made him question that. Fili had never cared enough to push the issue or look among his mother’s Vulcan friends and contacts to see if he saw flashes of himself in their faces. It wasn’t as if he’d lacked for love or attention with his mother and uncles doting on him or had any particular longing for a father.

Any hole in him that might have existed was filled in when he was five and Kili was born. For his younger brother his mother had used a Betazoid donor and, just like that, his mother had two boys that were unique in all the universe. That hadn’t been her intention at all but that was how it had ended up and so that’s how it was.

“Ereborians have a hard time,” She would tell him that same terrible night when he’d hated his ears so much that he’d scratched them until they were bleeding. He would have scars for the rest of his life. “And Vulcans are loved. I had my pick so why not pick something that might soften the way the other races see you? I hadn’t thought our own would be so cruel.”

Her fingers had skimmed the bandages on his ears as she pressed a kiss to the top of his head, murmuring that she thought his ears were lovely. It would take years for him to understand that she truly had meant well and that his generation had been the first where mixing began in earnest; she really hadn’t known that he’d find himself between two races, both but neither and not wanted by either for many years to come.  

His mother had never imagined that a strange sort of isolation would await them and take many years to work past. They would have to prove themselves valuable to be accepted, and work twice as hard as those of pure bloodlines to do it.

“Why isn’t Kili Vulcan?”

She laughed into his hair then leaned back to peer down at him. “I wanted you to have someone who would understand all the parts of you I couldn’t and I thought, after suffering through your terrible temper as a toddler and the dangers of your telepathy, that a Betazoid child would be a simpler matter. I picked a donor who only developed fairly weak empathy later in his life and hoped that would hold true for Kili.”

Her eyebrows rose up and her dark blue eyes sparkled with humor, saying without words that she’d been wrong in that as well. Kili was, at ten years old, a ‘handful’ according to all of the adults. Fili supposed he could be a pain when he cried, and threw his emotions all over the house, but when he was happy he radiated a warm bubbling feeling that Fili loved too much to let the bad days get to him.

She stroked his hair gently. “I didn’t want you to be alone.”

He settled back in his mother’s arms. “You made him for me?”

“Hmm. I suppose I did.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pon Farr is the Vulcan mating periods, that occurs in males every seven years. It makes them...well. A little...mad? Fili is actually dealing with it not all that badly, considering.


End file.
